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Scientists in Germany have developed car windscreens that can de-ice in cold
weather without an inbuilt heating element. Bernd Szyszka of the Fraunhofer
Institute for Surface Engineering and Thin Films in Braunschweig put glass
sheets in a vacuum chamber with a plate made from a zinc-aluminium alloy.
Heating the alloy ejected metal atoms which embedded themselves in the glass
sheet. This makes the glass electrically conductive but still transparent. When
a current passes through the glass it heats it up, melting any frost.